The ursa minor incident left Ponyville more than a little damaged. Unlike the Nightmare Moon incident however, no help was sent from Canterlot to aid in the rebuilding, meaning that Ponyville would remained damaged for quite a while longer. It was because of this fact that, two weeks after the attack, downtown Ponyville was closed off to the public.

Twilight and Cloud had been studying and experimenting with the Support Circle for those two weeks with little success. Though Cloud was now fairly quick at summoning, dismissing and using the Circle, neither he nor Twilight had learnt anything new about his ability.

Regardless, Twilight refused to stop trying.

Cloud sat at the kitchen table, his head slumped on the surface. His body ached from both Twilight’s various experiments as well as Princess Luna’s nighttime combat training. There was a silver lining to the training, of course; not only was he very slowly learning how to defend himself, he was also, though at an even slower rate, getting into decent shape.

This is bullshit… I’m becoming better physically and magically, I shouldn’t complain. Especially since my mind is still feeling rested after sleep, even if my body isn’t. Exactly! I’m getting stress from a bunch of different things but I have no reason to complain! How am I supposed to justify being grumpy?!

Before he could answer his own question, Twilight walked in wearing a pair of saddlebags.

“Cloud,” she began suddenly, “stop being a grumpy asshole, we have a national emergency.”

“What do you mean?” Cloud asked, ignoring the blatant insult.

“Remember those illegitimate storm clouds that have been in the news recently? The ones suspected to be part of an insurance scam?” As Twilight talked, she began collecting some food and placing it into the saddlebags she was wearing.

“Are weather manufacturers refusing to get rid of them?”

“No,” Twilight replied, shaking her head. “They aren’t clouds at all; it’s Dragon smoke.”

“And…? Why is that bad?” Cloud stood up and stretched out, relieving the aching somewhat. “Can’t it just be cleared like clouds anyway?”

“Pegasi-made clouds are imbued with magic,” she explained, ”which is why they can be cleared at all. Clouds that aren’t Pegasi-made can still be cleared by a Pegasus, but they use their natural magic to do so. Dragon smoke has magical properties of its own, properties that make it unable to be enchanted by Pegasus magic. Also, it blocks out light even better than you block out me telling you to pick up a damn book to learn these things yourself-”

“I see,” Cloud interrupted, scratching his chin, “if it keeps spreading, it’ll cause major problems for crops.” Not minor like the ursa. ”In that case, the first thing that needs to be done is deal with the source, but then how will they get rid of the smoke? Will it disperse by itself if it stops being produced?”

“Correct on all accounts,” Twilight praised, smiling as she continued packing her saddlebags, “but what do you mean ‘they’? This is our problem.” Cloud blinked.

“Excuse me?”

Twilight walked out of the kitchen to continue packing her bags and Cloud followed.

“What do you mean ‘our problem’?” He asked. “You mean the Spirits’ problem, right? Gonna spray your friendship all over that Dragon’s face?”

“Ugh! Don’t be so disgusting!” She exclaimed, practically retching. “And no, I meant our problem; the Princess - Princess Celestia I mean - specifically asked me to deal with this in whatever way I deemed fit.”

“And you deemed that using the Spirits is the fastest and most effective solution, right?”

“No,” Twilight scowled, “I deemed that the two of us would be more than enough to deal with this situation.”

“Are you serious?!” Cloud shouted. “The only ‘Dragon fighting’ experience I have is that time I scooped Spike up in a cat carrier! It didn’t even work! He just sent it to Celestia! And then the little bastard set my bedroom on fire!” So glad I learnt that water conjuring spell...

“Princess Celestia, Cloud,” Twilight corrected as she closed her bags, “and that fire was your own fault. Anyway, I have a plan for how to deal with it. Just trust me.” Cloud sighed.

“Fine, but you owe me a drink.”

Twilight and Cloud stood at the base of the mountain which housed the Dragon in question.

Twilight was wearing a pair of saddlebags emblazoned with her cutie mark, filled with books, food and anything she thought could help them along the way. Cloud was wearing a grumpy face.

“It’s around twelve thirty now,” Twilight remarked, “so if we assume that we can climb without any issue, we should make it to the peak at approximately five o’clock.”

“Uh, Twilight?” Cloud asked, realising what she hadn’t.

“However, it’s unlikely we’ll avoid any kind of complications, so it’s safe to say that our arrival will be closer to seven o’clock.”

“Twilight?”

“There are many kinds of complications we could run into. If we take that into account, then the absolute worst time we can reach the peak is three o’clock tomorrow.”

“Twilight, we can just-”

“Of course, that calculation has the issue of assuming that we can’t set up a camp for a night. If we assume that we can, then-”

Cloud summoned a large Support Circle under their hooves and willed it to fly upwards. Twilight stumbled in surprise, but was unable to fall over thanks to being rooted.

“I can get us to the top in four minutes, Twilight,” said Cloud. “It’s only a couple of miles high.”

“I… didn’t think about that,” admitted Twilight. She smiled after a moment. “Yes, this is much better than climbing.”

“Getting a little jealous of Pegasi there?”

“Just focus on flying.”

Four minutes later, they had arrived at the peak. A large cave opening stood before them, filled with darkness. Though the surrounding rock was thoroughly wrapped in moss, it was a minor detail in comparison to the impossibly thick black smoke pouring out at a steady rate.

“You mentioned you had a plan,” said Cloud, not looking away from the cave entrance. “Now would be the time to tell it.” He glanced over to Twilight who, surprisingly, looked terrified.

“I, uh…” she gulped, “I was admittedly a little, ah… intoxicated at the time of making the plan and… may have been hoping to think of a new one while climbing the mountain…” A few moments passed.

“But you weren’t, right?” Cloud asked through gritted teeth. “Because that would leave us alone facing off against a fucking Dragon.”

“It’s okay!” Twilight threw of her bags and rummaged around in them. “There’s no problem! No problem at all!” Her eye twitched. “I-I’m sure my old plan will still work just fine!” She pulled out an oddly shaped bottle of blue liquid and shoved it into Cloud’s grasp. “If you drink this shrinking potion, you can go down the Dragon’s throat and defeat it from the inside!”

“Twilight, this is mouthwash.”

“Then Equestria will be safe,” she continued, ignoring him, as she paced in circles ”the Princess will be proud, and nobody will die thanks to me not having a good plan and OH GODDESS EVERYPONY’S GONNA DIE HOLY SH-!” Cloud slapped her, snapping her out of it.

Twilight stood unmoving for a few seconds before blinking and exhaling.

“You feeling better now?” Cloud asked.

“Yes. Thank you.” A few more seconds passed. “I’m going to try talking to it.” Twilight began walking towards the cave.

“Twilight, stop!” Cloud shouted, holding her in a telekinetic grasp. Twilight quickly and easily countered the spell, barely noticing that Cloud had cast it at all. The counter effect knocked Cloud onto his ass. He sighed. “Fuck it, Plan B.”

Cloud summoned a Support Circle and quickly boosted himself before firing his red, magical beam at the roof of the cave. Focusing, he was able to keep up the spell for a good thirty seconds, blasting through stone as he moved his aim around until finally the mountain could take no more: There was a thunderous CRACK followed by the falling of rock as an avalanche buried the cave entrance under its rubble.

Twilight and Cloud stood unmoving. Their ears rang from the absurdly loud sounds, but the silence that followed seemed louder still. After a good few minutes, Twilight spoke.

“Well,” she began slowly, “I suppose that does take care of the smoke problem…”

Sure enough, no more smoke was coming from the cave. The Dragon had been trapped inside.

Back at the library once again, the duo had made it back just in time to take the dinner Spike had made for himself.

“...But it’s my pizza!” Spike complained as they ate his hard work. “Why the hell do you two think you can just take it from me?!”

“You need to eat healthier,” Twilight lied between bites. “I wouldn’t have let you eat this under normal circumstances anyway.”

“Yeah, which was why I made it while you were supposed to be climbing a mountain…” He muttered under his breath.

“Spike,” began Cloud, “we stopped a Dragon from killing everyone in Equestria - we deserve some unhealthy goodness. What did you do today?”

“I taught myself how to make pizza!” Spike shouted.

“So that’s why it tastes like shit.” Cloud shoved more pizza into his face. Spike smirked slyfuly.

“Actually, that’s because I washed the plates with toilet water!” He announced triumphantly. For the final time that day, there was yet another moment of silence.

“Dammit.”

Author's Notes:

In case anyone's annoyed at how things were sorted out; it's good to know that lazy solutions have consequences...